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Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Gentlemen,
I've been playing with rock crawlers over at scale 4x4 rc for a long time. Reccently while i was bored I ran across videos of Little Giants construction digging out his basement on youtube again. I thought that looked like fun, ventured back into the rc ag & industrial forums and started finding out that hydraulic models are in 'cubic dollars' so maybe not fun after all... Then i saw 'the stuff' and 'small haul' converting doepke Unit cranes and Tonka dump trucks and saw a more affordable entry into this world. Old toys and servos being massively cheaper than hydro, this could work. Cable machines are cool and have more visible stuff moving around and i don't have to worry about rivet counters telling me my build is wrong since it's a toy. So i started by finding my 1990s 1930s nylint dumptruck, and scaling up a papercraft crane i found on a japanese site, then began making it in brass. http://i.imgur.com/gKRbn5dh.jpg While working on it i ran across a 1955-56 Nylint Clark T-24 Michigan Crane which saves a ton of time vs rolling my own. I noticed a couple guys on here have converted these already so i'm hoping i can steal some knowlege. http://i.imgur.com/jgn9bCPh.jpg Right now i'm wanting to build 3 cable drums and slew, build a dragline bucket. i'd like to eventually add drive and steer and maybe lighting. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Awesome! another crane!
here is what I used to get the main part to swing. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps7xo8nlcb.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps3tzmlxxv.jpg All my pics of conversion here - http://s15.photobucket.com/user/ANTh...?sort=4&page=1 |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Here is a link to a video I just put together with some of the pictures of my NyLint conversion.
http://youtu.be/h_wDThHiDg4 I thought this was a pretty good conversion candidate. Lots of room in this cab for everything you will need to put in there. You can find my conversion thread that I made, but all of my photos were lost and the thread is pretty lacking without them :o http://www.rctruckandconstruction.co...ead.php?t=9350 Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Thank you very much, i was hoping i'd be able to get more pics of your build! I apologise in advance for the amount of questions i'm going to ask of everyone.
Is there a good way to access the counterweight section, or are you just working through the windows? Were your pulleys for crowd and boom elevation home made or production? What diameters did you find work best for the winch drums? I saw a few sizes. So is the crane house just resting on the plastic swing gear, or is there a bearing setup other than just the pivot? |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Getting into the counterweight part of the crane was my first issue.
There are spot welds around the top of the "lid". I drilled out the welds and the lid can be removed for really good access. This makes a great conversion in my opinion because of all the space. Be careful removing the lid and you will be able to use it as a removable lid to change batteries. I run two separate lipo batteries as well as lead counterweight and there is plenty of room for all of it. http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/...pstj1i8fvt.jpg http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/...psdhyhnml7.jpg I made all the rope drums for mine on the little unimat lathe. it works good on hoist and drag/crowd drums to make the diameter as large as possible and still let you "stack" the servos together. I made the boom drum pretty small diameter thinking I didn't want it to move fast. You could use that approach on the hoist if you were planning to do lots of heavy lifting but I don't think it matters much. I think this part of the conversion is more about making the servo mounts work well and easy to install, then make the drums. http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/...ps99xjxxef.jpg Here is a pic of the pulleys I made for the boom required for dragline configuration. I really want to make a fairleed but haven't done it yet. You could probably just run the drag rope out thru a small hole in the front of the cab without the two pulleys. They way I have these keeps the drag rope from riding on the cab. The house is simply sitting on top of the plastic gear. I don't even have a retaining nut to hold it down. Here is a picture of the truck chassis and the slightly different version on my custom crawler base. When you detach the house from the truck, carefully grind off the top of the stud to leave the stud attached to the truck, and as long as possible. On the truck, I did drill and tap the stud and add a cap washer and screw to hold it together. This way if someone picks up the house it won't separate from the truck. Here is the crawler version, I enlarged the hole and made a large post/stud to mount to the crawler base. This has a small center hole to hold the slip ring needed for power transfer to the tracks. My plan was to mod the truck to match so I could move the crane back to the truck if I wanted. http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/...psw8pmhltz.jpg http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/...psntz9khzu.jpg Feels like I have hijacked your build thread, sorry:o Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
I don't think it's a hijack at all, i asked you for advice. If you'd prefer i can ask all kinds of questions over in your build thread.
Awesome i hadn't figured out if it was spotwelds or tabs yet. Those pics are really helpful. It's not really a build thread yet, all i've done on the crane is string it, start straightening a few things, and fix the outriggers. I'm planning, and gathering advice and ideas, and um making motor noises while playing with it. You guys have done the hard work i'm just going to steal whatever ideas i can. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Glad to help, we can continue here, fine with me. And, let's make this a build thread, get to work, I can't wait to see another dragline moving dirt! :p
Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Well that's embarassing, the back fell off.
http://i.imgur.com/qVMOVm9h.jpg Spot welds on mine weren't as clean as yours ___ if you follow my lead, you NEED to add a screw hole in the cab before removing this. walkway side of the cable drum window. there is no tack weld there and the lid is structural. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Cool, glad to see you working on it!
I was able to drill and tap the stud on the truck (5th wheel). Then I made a simple thrust washer to slip over the stud to hold the house on the truck. Keep at it, I thought it was fairly easy to convert and the hi tec servos that I used are really easy and stable conversions to continuously rotating servos. Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
So far im just thinking i'll start off with a 1/4'' id bushing over the stock pin, and open up the crane house a little. Maybe tap a hole into the pin for a washer or bearing to keep the house connected. Need to pick up a slew gear to figure out height.
What kind of servos do you guys reccomend? I know one of you guys used tower MG996R, those are out of stock everywhere i've seen. I've seen some using hs-645mg like i run in my crawlers, but thats a $30 servo to need 4-5 of, it was a $40 chassis... For the truck i'm figuring it's gonna drive a little, dig a lot. So i can probably wimp out some on that part. 2 channel cheap servo and esc. I may try to find/make some springs later on, bushings and bearings would be good to add, but it's already had 60+ years without them. Since i've got a 1955/56 with the best steering setup of any of them, i'm probably just gonna roll with most of that as is and just mount up a servo to it. I'm thinking i may try to cobble up a way for drive off an old screwgun in my scrap pile. It's a nice planetary reduction. Probably going to try for both rear axles powered. Maybe eventually throw some better axles under it. I really like the 'but it's a toy' vibe it has so far, and i'm not having much luck finding anything out about the Clark T-24 Michigan Crane to make more detailed. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
I like the 645MG, they convert to 360 rotation really well. Some Futaba servos have the pot on the circuit board and are not to friendly for the conversion.
Take some good pics of the chassis conversion, I still have not done mine. Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
I figured out my trucks steering throw being off had to do with a couple bent linkages, and straightening up the steering shaft got a whole lot more throw now. Also straightened up the bumper, took the lid off the cab.
Do you guys think it'd look better keeping the stock steering wheel that turns with wheels, or delete that in favor of easier setup and more scale look? Yeah you're probably right on the servos, i just didn't know if any of the other cable machine operators had suggestions. If they convert easy and have a wide deadband, it beats cheap and creepy. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Random stuff.
http://ccmodels.com/shop/michigan-t-24-conversion-kit/ was available 2009 for $325. Looks like it had crawler tracks, dragline bucket, main boom extension, secondary boom, grapple claw, a bent boom, extra top rigging, third crank drum... in brass, based off michigan factory info. And to be helpful it's! not available, and the pictures are ms-paint. Truckmaker was kind enough to tell me his trucks aftermarket boom extension was 15" OAL, pin holes 14_3/4 centers. He also shared some detail pics. It looks like they designated t-24 for truck mounted, c-24 for crawler. And i'm not having much luck learning about the cranes, or the michigan company, or clark who bought them, but there's some goofy looking bird that shows up in every search. |
talking to myself since i can't edit older posts
Making cable drums is really slow with a redneck lathe setup, so i broke it more instead.
http://rsmg.pbsrc.com/albums/v413/fr...h=480&fit=clip http://rsmg.pbsrc.com/albums/v413/fr...h=480&fit=clip The cab roof is 4 spotwelds, 2 inboard side, 2 outboard. The steering support has 3 spotwelds and a joggle through a slot in floor. Steering wheel is brazed onto a splined shaft, if you want to keep steering shaft intact the cab would have to come off frame. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
I looked at a bunch of pictures, and made some guesses, and started to cobble up a dragline bucket out of stuff i had on hand so I could play around with the mechanics of it. Brass sheet thats too thin, hollow tube, and some electronics solder...
BUT I think it's acting about like it should and once the rigging is done in chain i might be onto something. (I started before i saw the patent drawings to copy, but it should work on soft loose stuff.) http://i.imgur.com/Py2Xf8ah.jpg Prototypes aren't pretty. http://i.imgur.com/BFrXiW5h.jpg Also started setting up for hoist and crowd drum servo mounts, and working toward getting steering servo in. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
next up, i took some 0.063" aluminum 2024 t3, and graph paper. I think this is a good start on side panels for a boom extension. That's the longest i could fit on 8.5x11 paper, i can post up template if anyone wants. Planning to make an even longer mid-boom just because i've got some longer aluminum. This one will put my boom reach at 32" once complete.
http://i.imgur.com/ShU8XvTh.jpg Then some brass stock turned into a windshield wiper and side mirror. I really should try to get back to making drums soon so i can get back to servo mounts... |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
I've been looking at servo accessories, trying to to come up with the easy way to do this instead of needing a lathe.
On servocity I've stumbled across 'servo shaft hubs' which are a splined 0.5" shaft and one end of the winch drum. Or they have 'servo shafts' that are just a shaft in 0.5 or 0.375 with the spline drive. I can probably fab up the other side plate, tap/die, and with a little locktite. Hs645 uses their 'C1' 24t splines and i can find 32pitch and 48pitch gears to fit it made of Acetyl and brass. But i haven't figured out what the slew gear donor should be to make it all work.. i also learned the vex gears are 24 pitch. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
What about a small gear motor with a drum on it, like this one?
- http://www.ebay.com/itm/262553977068 And control it with an ESC. Best regards, Stein :-) |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
As an alternative, for the slew and pinon gears, maybe you could use something like this:
- Pinion: http://www.ebay.com/itm/151889646562 - Slew: http://www.ebay.com/itm/161891095040 You can see they have almost all types of bores, mods and number of teeth: - http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_odkw...+gear&_sacat=0 If you select a 4mm bore, then you can use a gear motor like this one: - http://www.ebay.com/itm/381486411254 60 RPM / (66 teeth / 12 teeth) = 60rpm / 5.5 = 11 RPM 11 RPM for the swing would be quite ok, I think. Best regards, Stein :-) |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Frizz,
I'll turn the drums for you if you know what you want/need. Mine are pretty simple. You want them as large in diameter as you can fit nested next to each other. And for width I just wanted the drum to be centered in the "window". Now, for the tricky part. I don't like the way I attached mine to the servo, but I have had no problems with them so far. I drilled and taped the servo spline screw hole to something larger, probably 2-56 or 4-40 I don't recall which. Then a matching stud installed in the drive end of each drum and a pin in the off end of the drum which is held by the support channel at the other end. Ideally you would want the drive end to be a spline to match the servo but that is way past my machine skills and tooling. Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Hey Frizzen you got this done yet? You got 2 of the masters working with you it ought to be close ;) I missed some of the posts on here, don't overlook the fact that the longer you make the boom the larger the counter weight you'll need. If you make it much longer and you do a side swing it will tip it over without lifting anything :rolleyes::D
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Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
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Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
SteinHDan, that would work too. I was just planning on running the gearmotor/esc combo units like i'd seen on other cable machines like built by thestuff, smallhaul, rvjimd
Truckmaker, yeah you're right what can i say... i suck at building and having time/money. I know the longer boom will impart a lot more moment on the machine, i just wanted to see how things change around, and more reach looks really cool. I'm also not above running lead ballast if it needs it. jim, i greatly appriceate that. I was thinking something maybe built off one of these: https://www.servocity.com/standard-hub-horns Thinking i can have a protrusion to index to the .500 hole and a flange to bolt on the near-side. i wasn't sure if it's worth it to have far-side support on the drums? I need to break out calipers and think and mock up a bit before i'd be able to do a dimentional sketch for your consideration. Or depending on the alloy you have, i might be able to just order a spare gearset and just broach the splines into a much simpler drum instead of getting that crazy. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Frizz, do you have the servos already? If not, I highly recommend the hitec 645MG. Especially since I have some of them here already and I can use the round horn to make up a prototype drum.
I would do some off side support, it isn't too much more work and helps support and align the drums. I'll do something on this today and see what I come up with. I am going to see if I can simply use one of the plastic horns that they come with. I don't think we need the metal spline version for strength. I'll post my progress here. Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
How about like this? I'm about to drill the horn to the drum. Then it can be screwed to the servo through the center hole in the drum. The off side can then use a pin to support it.
http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/...psxvsje7zw.jpg Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
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Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
That's pretty much exactly what i had been thinking, i just didn't know how much force the machine uses vs the plastic strenght. I was trying to overcomplicate things.
I'm going to have to send you a pm, that's looking beautiful. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
As long as you add a support rack for the off side I think it will work great, I only put two screws in the plastic horn. The screws are about 1/2" of from center so they will have all kinds of torque way out there and they only need to turn the drum. I have two of them made.
Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Here is the third one in the lathe, just about to drill the center hole.
http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/...psrxiaii3l.jpg Frizz, send me that PM. I can probably send these to you Thursday. I'm think I'll make the mounting bracket for the servos and the off side support as well. Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Frizz,
Here are the three drums. I made a little angle bracket for them and decided to stop there and see what you think? They will need a strap across the opposite end of the servo mount tabs and I used a small 1/4" channel for the off end drum support. The center hole in the off end of the drums could be enlarged a bit at the end to match the head of a #6 cap screw which could be threaded into the channel to support the off side of the drums. http://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/...pss0crtdes.jpg Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
At this rate, you'll need to write up a dimensioned spec sheet on the parts or start offering kits.
Those are looking really great! |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
As far as i've found, real Clark Michigan cranes seem to be set up with a pair of dead lines off the tip to a sheeve block, cables run from the sheeves back to the house some unknown number of times for mechanical advantage and to reduce the amount of cable.
http://i.imgur.com/GMwf9coh.jpg http://i.imgur.com/8yxSDGRh.jpg these are the most helpful images I've been able to find so far Stock toy just had it route: fixed at house, tip pulley, cable drum. And it works fine as a toy. Atleast for now, i'm thinking split the difference like jim did: fixed at house, tip, house, tip, house, drum. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Frizz,
Mailed some stuff your way this morning, supposed to arrive Tuesday. jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Mail came right before i had to leave for work. Eventually i got home and got to open this up!
http://i.imgur.com/PeJVxH8h.jpg They look awesome, thank you so much! I'm going to have to study your setup on the C-24 a bit more. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Friz,
once you start messing with it, let me know if you need more detail or have questions. Oh, and I don't know for sure, but I think the center holes are a bit undersized for 1/8" shaft. Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Good call on the hs-645 being easy to mod to contious rotation. I had all 4 servos swapped pretty quick.
Verify it works, open up, unscrew pot retainer screw inside, remove the output gear, support the gear on a v-block or pair of pliers and bump pin out. Reassemble, lube gears, verify ops and center pot. I may swap the pots out later for matched set gold band resistors if i'm in there sometime later... Have they been looked into enough to see if there's a way to open up the deadband a bit wider? Were the shafts you used made from piano wire, or from a certain donor? |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Shafts for the pulleys you mean? I used 1/8" steel round from the "hobby" rack at menards. I think you may need to drill out the center hole, I think they were a bit under size but verify.
Jim |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Build goes slow, lots of life happened...
I know you said 1/8 steel rod is fine to support pulleys, but crazy lives here. Aluminum and steel don't play that nicely together, and i can't remember i'm converting a toy to a better toy. I haven't decided the pulleys need polished and alodined yet, it's probably not far off. Blah blah blah, fretting, types of corrosion, galling... So finally made it to the hobby shop and got my suppolt rod setup: 1/8 steel rod stock held with 1/8 E-clips, 5/32 brass tube as bushing between pulley and rod. Also i realized that the back of my cab roof has seperated spotwelds from the right side of the house so that needs cleaned up and braized. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
More boring scratch-build notes:
Picked up the slewing ring gear, an Align trex 500 main gear, 162 teeth, 1/4" tall, 3.986" od. (Thanks again jim) It seems to mesh ok with a servo spline mount gear i picked up several years ago. Hitech hs-645mg use C1 spline, this gear is 18 teeth, 1/8" tall, 0.426" od. I forgot if it's 32 or 48 pitch. Gear ratio comes in at 9:1. |
Re: Nylint michigan crane conversion, hopefully
Nice to see you working on it! Jim
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